Best 1141 quotes in «historical quotes» category

When he bowed his head to hide his grin, she stiffened. “This is most certainly not amusing.” He looked up, the humor still glittering in his eyes, and spoke one word. “James.” “Pardon me?” “James Lamont. It’s my name. You’ll need it if you’re to curse me properly.

When I read Sunshine’s book, it was a scary recalibration of my thought process and a refreshing re-pondering of lifelong ideas.” • Taken from the Foreword written by Evangelist Carl Harris

When life disappoints, one must apply one’s will, not crumple.

When King John was angry, he threw himself down and rolled the floor, yelling and chewing the expensive oriental rugs that Crusaders had brought back from the East.

When looked at from the woman’s side of the bed-sheet, most tales take a turning.

Where there’s life, there’s learning, and the truth is always calling us out of our pride. If we don’t harken, it will call louder, and throw a situation at us. A pebble at first. If we still don’t listen, we’ll get a stone. Then a rock. Then a great crashing boulder. We must learn, or die.

When one is busy, as she was in Donegal, life whistles by. One struggles to keep up with oneself. It is vital, when one slows down, to be conscious of small things, small moments. To take pains.

When we are reading, a voice comes to us as in the dark and whispers, "Imagine!" Samuel Beckett as told by Bill Moyer in the Foreword he wrote for, The Public Library: A Photographic Essay by Robert Dawson. Afterword by Ann Patchett

Where are you going?" "To get my Bible." "Right now? You can't get your Bible out right now! I'm, I'm, we're just about to..." She'd never be able to go through with this if he got out his Bible. She wiped all humor from her face. "I believe you. Proverbs 5:18. Rejoice, relish, and romp with your husband." He chuckled. "I'm serious, Connie, and I won't have you feeling ashamed or unclean over anything we do in that bed, tonight or any other night." "I won't. I feel unashamed and very clean. I promise. But please don't get out that Bible." "What? Think you that God can't see us right now?" Groaning, she slid off his lap and covered her face with her hands. He sunk to his knees in front of her, drawing her hands down. "I love you. You love me. We are man and wife. God is watching, Connie, and He is very, very pleased.

While taste conveys the complexity of life, a good chef should keep in mind that food can have a meaning that is often not apparent but affects the palate nonetheless. For example, the "A1 sauce" is now very popular in America. I have tried it. It is very good. What is not understood is that when one takes a bite of a steak that has been smothered in "A1," as the sauce was proclaimed by King George IV, they are eating history. The combination of malt vinegar, dates, mango chutney, apples and orange marmalade all serve as a reminder that the United States was settled by England and will always be England's. The bold combination of malt vinegar and orange marmalade- England's lifeblood- and those flavors of England's conquered- mango from India and apples so strongly identified with America- cannot be ignored.

When the watermelons were as large as a child's head, the women boiled them, but they collapsed into a tasteless green mush that no one could eat, not the children, not the cow.

Would a dead man touch you like this?

Why, on to the castle, to kill the royal family, and claim the throne that isn't mine by right!

Wicked eyes are not a good prospect for seminary boys. They want a gentle, soft sort of wife, not a wife who looks as though she may sprout wings and carry off the young children of the village. ~Maria "Smythe

Women were a crossword puzzle: the seemingly perfect word was met with too many letters

Yes. Kissing. Overrated." "I could change your mind," Zach said, surprising the hell out of them both. Why would he take something as simple as this banter as a challenge? "I don't know that I want to, but I feel right sure I could." "How arrogant. How typically male." "I suppose." He shrugged and reached for the wine bottle. "More?" She nodded, frowning now. "How do you know you could change my mind? It's been a long time since you... well—" "Over two years." The pain was there, an ache in his chest he imagined he would feel every time he thought of Hannah. And he thought of her every day. Dreamed of her about as often. But lately, maybe only in the past week, he'd begun to realize that his life had not ended with his wife's. He either had to die or start living again.

...yo no soy partidario de la guerra civil como sistema, pero en el momento presente Venezuela no tiene otra salida sino echar plomo. El civilismo de los estudiantes termino en la cárcel. Los hombres dignos que han osado escribir, protestar, pensar, también están en la cárcel, o en el destierro, o en el cementerio. Se tortura, se roba, se mata, se exprime hasta la última gota de sangre del país. Esto es peor que la guerra civil. Y es también una guerra civil en la cual uno solo pega, mientras el otro, que somos casi todos los venezolanos, recibe los golpes.

Women come more easily to that wisdom which ancient peoples, and all wild peoples even now, think the only wisdom.

Writing historical fiction has many common traits with writing sci-fi or fantasy books. The past is another country - a very different world - and historical readers want to see, smell and touch what it was like living there.

You are an exceedingly beautiful mystery, one that intrigues me and one that I plan to solve.

You are a soldier. A fighter. And now you must fight. Not for the emperor, not for France . . . but for yourself.

You are entitled to feel all the bitterness and hatred you were taught. You are entitled to carry with you the pain and sorrow, the longing and disappointment. They will happily accompany you through life. Claim them if you will, but remember they are greedy, and their demands are many. You must be ready to pay the price they require.' 'The price?' Nasnana sobered and nodded. 'Yes. There is always a price. Little by little these companions will steal away your joy, your peace of mind, your contentment. They will take your very heart and turn it to stone.

You do what you are

You can trust in nothing. Nothing is always there, holding all.

You dare quarrel with me Doerwyne? She wrinkled her nose. "It's not quarreling to express an opinion'" "Women don't have opinions." "Then I must be a man, because I have plenty.

You could have arrived atop a wildcat and no one would have said a word. They will adore you.

You frequently state, and in your letter you imply, that I have developed a completely one-sided outlook and look at everything in terms of science. Obviously my method of thought and reasoning is influenced by a scientific training – if that were not so my scientific training will have been a waste and a failure. But you look at science (or at least talk of it) as some sort of demoralizing invention of man, something apart from real life, and which must be cautiously guarded and kept separate from everyday existence. But science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. Science, for me, gives a partial explanation of life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment. Your theories are those which you and many other people find easiest and pleasantest to believe, but so far as I can see, they have no foundation other than they leaf to a pleasanter view of life (and an exaggerated idea of our own importance)... I agree that faith is essential to success in life (success of any sort) but I do not accept your definition of faith, i.e. belief in life after death. In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall come nearer to success and that success in our aims (the improvement of the lot of mankind, present and future) is worth attaining. Anyone able to believe in all that religion implies obviously must have such faith, but I maintain that faith in this world is perfectly possible without faith in another world… It has just occurred to me that you may raise the question of the creator. A creator of what? ... I see no reason to believe that a creator of protoplasm or primeval matter, if such there be, has any reason to be interested in our significant race in a tiny corner of the universe, and still less in us, as still more significant individuals. Again, I see no reason why the belief that we are insignificant or fortuitous should lessen our faith – as I have defined it.

You have a spine of steel and fire in your eyes, Rosalie. To have such a quality, one must be shaken to the foundation of one’s soul and put back together. I want to know how you emerged from hell made of steel and fire.

You know better than me that there are people who serve God and those who serve only their own selves.

You made a lifetime commitment before God and the world. A silly thing like a divorce doesn’t reverse it.

You next," he said. "Out of those clothes and into bed." She nodded but didn't move from Sally's side. The thought of undressing exhausted her. Where would she find the strength such a task would require? "I'm filthy. I'll ruin the new bed." "I'll bring you some fresh water." "I've no clothes to change into." His grin was downright wicked. "I know." A short laugh escaped her.

You’re as lovely as a flower in the stark of winter… Your hair is the color of wheat under the midday sun, and your eyes—” “Yes, yes. My eyes are like the sea or the sky or some such nonsense,” she quipped with a laugh, the lilting sound like the finest music, better than anything he could ever play.

You were so intent on what your purpose would be. I remember it nearly word for word." "Recite it for me then, my Lainna." She smiled a warm, soft smile, and her eyes filled with light. "You would waken in your bedchamber with your lady beside you...

You were kidnapped not?" "I was kidnapped." "You were forced not into marriage?" "I was forced into marriage." "You want not an annulment?" "I want not an annulment.

Abandoned by philosophy, politics, and sociology, historical determinism continues to hold out in formalist art criticism.

Abigail Adams could become my favorite historical sleuth.

You tell me that you sometimes view the dark side of your Diana, and there no doubt you discover many Spots which I rather wish were erased, than conceal'd from you. Do not judge by this, that your opinion is an indifferent thing to me, (were it so, I should look forward with a heavey Heart,) but it is far otherways, for I had rather stand fair there, and be thought well of by Lysander than by the greater part of the World besides. I would fain hope that those faults which you discover, proceed more, from a wrong Head, than a bad Heart. E'er long May I be connected with a Friend from whose Example I may form a more faultless conduct, and whose benevolent mind will lead him to pardon, what he cannot amend.

Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.

Accepting the view that man was prior in the creation, some Scriptural writers say that as the woman was of the man, therefore, her position should be one of subjection. Grant it, then as the historical fact is reversed in our day, and the man is now of the woman, shall his place be one of subjection?

According to Marx, socialism is the first stage of communism and it covers a very long historical period in which we must practise the principle "to each according to his work" and combine the interests of the state, the collective and the individual, for only thus can we arouse people's enthusiasm for labour and develop socialist production.

Actually, the only thing I regret is not making more underground films and bringing them with me as historical documents.

A collection of masks, depicting historical figures in life and what I like to call the eternal repose.

After all, that's why we read historical fiction-to be transported to another time, and to be astonished at ancient people's lives and traditions, just as they would probably be astonished at ours.

After all, the past is our only real guide to the future, and historical analogies are instruments for distilling and organizing the past and converting it to a map by which we can navigate.

After I had written seventeen full-length mysteries, two volumes of mini-mysteries, a travel guide and some quiz books, not to mention a spin-off Roman Mystery Scrolls series, I thought it was time I moved to new historical pastures.

After all, science is essentially international, and it is only through lack of the historical sense that national qualities have been attributed to it.

After further introductions were made, we settled in the family room. Yes, the living room would have been nicer, but I wanted comfortable surroundings while plotting to murder one famed historical figure with another one. ~Cat

After I am dead I would like people to say: 'Beuys understood the historical situation. He altered the course of events'. I hope in the right direction.

A living organism must be studied from two distinct aspects. One of these is the causal-analytic aspect which is so fruitfully applicable to ontogeny. The other is the historical descriptive aspect which is unravelling lines of phylogeny with ever-increasing precision. Each of these aspects may make suggestions concerning the possible significance of events seen under the other, but does not explain or translate them into simpler terms.

A historical perspective can also help free us from the ever-present danger -- especially at danger in the social sciences -- of absolutizing a theory or method which is actually relative to the fact that we live at a given moment in time in the development of our particular culture.